Sunday - March 22, 2009

THE RACE IS ON FOR THE WHITE HOUSE.  SIMON HEFFER IN THE TELEGRAPH

Darn I LOVE this woman.
Specially with her hair down. 
Wish she’d keep it that way.

Alright ... this is a viewpoint from Mr. Heffer who wrote this from N.Y.

When I went to the Telegraph site in order to share this with you, they also had Our Sarah’s photo there. So I thought ...
OK ... I’ll make it my contribution under Eye Candy. 

Motion carried.

The race is on for the White House
Simon Heffer notes that the Republicans are already gearing up to oust Barack Obama in 2012.

By Simon Heffer

The most remarkable sight in New York this week was a middle-aged black man on the subway wearing a badge proclaiming “PALIN IN 2012”. It brought home two things. First, that the next presidential campaign has already started; and second, that it will be as wildly unpredictable as the last one.

All that is missing is a coherent Republican Party to challenge Barack Obama. It is not unusual for there to be no obvious front-runner for the nomination at this early stage; but it is unusual for there to be no sound leadership. The Republicans remain shattered and demoralised following not just John McCain’s defeat, but the years of vilification and failure that preceded it.

The vocal conservative element in the party is angry that Michael Steele, the Republican National Committee chairman and nominal party leader, has been ineffectual in tackling what they (with some justification) see as Mr Obama’s pursuit of socialism. Mr Steele – who has just upset at least half his party by announcing that abortion is, in his view, an “individual choice” – has been savaged by Rush Limbaugh, the talk radio host, which led Mr Obama to accuse Limbaugh of being the de facto Republican leader. It was alarmingly near the truth. As in Britain, where elements in the media have led the opposition to Labour during years of Conservative failure, it is pundits who make the running in attacking the Obama administration, not elected Republicans.

Even if none of them has, this early on, declared an interest in fighting in 2012, it is assumed there are three likely contenders. One is Sarah Palin, far more popular in middle America than the liberal media here or anywhere else wish to give her credit for. Because of her vice-presidential candidacy she has a higher profile than almost any other Republican, something that counts for much in a country where brand recognition on television seems to outweigh almost any other consideration.

This week one of the loose ends of the Palin operation was tied up: Levi Johnston, the youth who fathered a child on Mrs Palin’s daughter Bristol, has been given the boot, and their engagement broken off. If Miss Palin has a man in tow come the next campaign, he is likely to be more reliably from central casting. Mrs Palin, meanwhile, is throwing herself into her job as Governor of Alaska, but maintaining high-profile links with her colleagues in Washington. She has been asked to deliver the keynote speech at the Republicans’ biggest fund raising event of the year, in the capital in June. How she plays that evening will have a considerable bearing on 2012.

The other two possible contenders are putting themselves about even more. Mitt Romney, who failed to secure the nomination last year but who as a hugely successful businessman has developed an authoritative critique of the handling of the economic crisis, has a carefully managed programme, and much to say. So does Newt Gingrich, whose “Contract with America” enabled the Republicans to sweep Congress in 1994 and cause Bill Clinton great difficulties. Washington insiders say that Mr Gingrich’s divisive reputation and three marriages leave him at a disadvantage: but if a black man can become president, so can a serial divorcee.

Sadly for the Republicans, it isn’t three years until the next campaign: it’s one. The Democrats control both houses of Congress. The steamrollering through of the flawed $787 billion stimulus package shows what happens when there is insufficient scrutiny. Someone urgently has to take control of the Republican ideal and give it shape, meaning and intent. There are whispers around the political and business class here that if Mr Obama is not careful, he will emulate Jimmy Carter, and be a one-term president. That will depend not so much on his ill-fortune in office, I fear, as on that of those who would seek to remove him from it.

The promise of change already rings hollow

The scandal of bonuses being paid out of public money to senior executives of AIG, the failing insurance conglomerate, sealed a horrid week for the administration, and for Timothy Geithner, the Treasury Secretary.

Senator Christopher Dodd, a Democrat who chairs the committee that is supposed to scrutinise such things, denied amending the stimulus legislation to allow the bonuses to be paid. He was lying, as he now admits. He was in fact bullied into it by administration officials, for reasons that remain unclear. Both Senator Dodd and President Obama had donations from AIG to their campaigns of more than $100,000 last year, which may or may not have anything to do with it.

Those of us who watched the Obama campaign at close quarters, and heard all the flannel about new dawns and decency, were unsurprised that this sort of flagrant dishonesty should become apparent so early in the day.

The buck seems, however, to be stopping with Mr Geithner, who has his job despite an admission of tax avoidance, and whose team still has vacancies because of the unsuitability of those chosen. “Change you can believe in” doesn’t quite do this state of affairs justice, does it?

Let’s be diplomatic about this

Conversations with that distinguished minority of Americans who understand foreign policy show a worrying consensus. Mr Obama expected his main challenge to be Iran, to whom he has sent a YouTube video. Instead it is Pakistan, whose president appears to be the prisoner of various insane factions, and whose reputation as a training and breeding ground for terrorism grows by the day.

No one here has the slightest conviction that the administration understands the gravity of the problem, or knows what to do about it. Having been on the receiving end of a sophisticated bit of foreign policy ourselves – the gift of 25 tacky DVDs to our visiting Prime Minister, and the valedictory assertion by a senior official that there was no Special Relationship – we might reflect that if these people can’t deal properly with their friends, they haven’t a prayer of dealing properly with their enemies.

HEFFER

For those who do not know. Mr. Heffer is an editor at The Telegraph and a very well known political journalist and commentator.
He is a conservative and he is NOT anti-American but he does take issue with some American policies.  He was not a huge fan of Pres.Bush but he also wasn’t one of those jerks who compared Bush to Hitler.  He has his opinions which may at times be at odds with some of ours. But unlike liberal critics, Mr. Heffer has good manners.

Posted by peiper     on 03/22/2009 at 11:13 AM   
Filed Under: • Editorials • Politics •  
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